Wandering Lights

In this episode, I speak to David Lindenmayer, a world renowned Australian conservationist and forest ecologist with over 1400 published papers to his name. We discuss David's upbringing, how he come to love forests and science, the importance of good science communication, sustainable forestry, biodiversity and carbon markets, scientific leaders, and drive.

In this episode, I speak to Russell Staley, an Australian engineer and businessman. Russell was a founding member of what is now named Worley-Parsons, the largest global engineering firm, employing over 60,000 employees. He was on Australia's Rich List and has been part of numerous ventures.

During the podcast we discuss Russell's journey from a small coalmining town in England to Australia, working at Parsons, building a company, being a leader vs a manager, juggling work and family, the importance of drive/purpose, the influence of wealth, and other topics.

Our conversation sees us investigating this change, exploring the assumptions implicit in the old system of examination-based assessment and learning, the assumptions underpinning the new one, the integrity present in both, what this means for students, and ultimately the conflict between profits and pedagogy.

In this episode, I speak to Australian medical Nobel laureate, Peter Doherty. Peter and I focus on the theme of Covid-19, rehashing its nature as a pathogen, where we sit with it at this point, and what we can expect from the future. We also cover vaccince hesistancy, vaccine efficacy, long covid, and Peter's thoughts on our response to the pandemic.

In this episode, I talk to the internationally acclaimed, post-keynesian Australian economist Steve Keen. During the conversation, we hone in on the current state of climate economics, which Steve reveals to be defunct and dangerouslymisleading. We review the criticisms he has published in academic journals, and get to the bottom of the true state of things.

We also touch on some of the failures of environmentalism, and cover the nuclear energy debate.

In this episode, I talk once again to Chemistry professer Douglas MacFarlane. We touch on the topic of fossil fuel use for fertiliser production, a fundamental element of global food supply. Doug enlightens me as to the consequences of that use, and the implications a renewable future has for that industry, which may currently be more dire than hopeful.

In this episode, I talk to an old lecturer of mine, Chris Thompson. Though Chris is a chemist by trade, he has a passion for education research and improving education systems within universities. We cover a range of topics, including: student experience, lecturing vs educating, the shortcomings of the univeristy system, improvements to be made, and advice for current students.